Murder in Palm Springs.

On February 21 a Palm Springs woman was murdered behind a local boarded up car dealership. Denee Salisbury was a 48 year old homeless woman who was described by family as suffering from OCD and manic-depression. I read about her story in the Desert Sun newspaper and immediately posted it to my page. It shook me up. Her murder sent chills through me and then I became angry. As a free society we honor peoples rights to live however they choose, but how can we let the mentally ill homeless live out such a savage existence. Can't we DO something?

Not only was Denee mentally ill and homeless so was her alleged killer. Verne Orlop, 52, had been in and out of prison his whole adult life . IN the past 5 years he has been in Patton State hospital 3 times . The fact that he was released to go back to the streets is a tragedy in itself. There is a revolving door system in place that allows a ill person to be released as soon as they are medicated enough to be deemed competent. The problem is that many stop taking meds as soon as they walk out of the hospital and are soon as bad or worse off than they were before commitment. As Denee's family said, she was the most well when in prison and forcibly medicated. After that and left to her own devices she fell through the cracks of the system and spiraled into the hell of life on the streets.

There is a new commitment law in place that allows a judge to force an individual with a mental illness into treatment if several factors are present. They must be a danger to themselves or others and have a track record of repeat incarcerations and hospitalizations. Kendra's law was put on the books and named after Kendra Webdale who was pushed in front of a subway train by a chronically homeless schizophrenic man. The problem is that the decision of who is a danger to others is often left to police with the family being ignored or disregarded. Warning signs as to the schizophrenic pusher were all over the place. He was repeatedly hospitalized, incarcerated and arrested for misdemeanor crimes.  Warning signs as to Denee's fate were all over the place too. Her family tried to help but went unheard and ignored. The area she was killed in is a blight in the city of Palm Springs , populated with the criminally insane. The tragedy is that it is left to continue unchecked. Th
e area behind that car dealership is still populated with the homeless, mentally ill. It is not being cleared out and the residents sent to treatment. It is being left unchecked to the disgrace of the system. The point is ,the system is irreparably broken. We need to start from scratch.

Why don't e set up systems to catch the chronically homeless mentally ill before they fall through the cracks, before they commit a crime? The botom line is their should be strong commitment laws in place and places, yes institutions where the severley, criminally and perpetually mentally ill should be placed. The model of community care and the promise of revolutionary drugs has failed. People are dying with their "Rights on". In other words under the guise of freedom those who are the most ill are left to their own devices. Care should be enforced, not optional when certain criteria are met.

We cannot mourn the loss of a Denee in our society without taking some responsibility for her murder. She should never have been allowed to remain on the streets because of an untreated mental illness. There should be laws that forced her into treatment and placed her in a rehabilitative environment. Her rights should have been superseded by  a mandate that would ensure her sanity. We could have protected her and our society from mentally ill people like her murderer. Anything short of this is a disgrace and inhumane!